78 THE BRITISH APPROACH TO POLITICS

cannot begin earning at 14; does the Government propose to
grant maintenance allowances? Will these be granted to all
parents, or only those who need them? Who will judge need?
Some schools are partly controlled by religious bodies; will
they be able to afford the extra expense? Is the Government
going to give them any help? The reader will object that the
Minister ought to have thought of all this for himself, before
he decided on his policy. No doubt; no one but a fool would"
think of keeping more children at school without considering
the need for teachers. But the difficult question is one of quantity;
how much extra expense will be caused? how great will be the
inconveniences? how far do they make it wise to alter the
Minister's original plan? how long will it take to make the
necessary preparations before the new policy can come into
force? These questions can only be answered when a mass of
facts has been collected. If the Minister is to be the real chief
he must judge which statements are so important that he ought
to verify them for himself, and make the facts part of his own
knowledge, not merely part of what he has been told. He cannot
give a personal interview to every employer lamenting the loss
of cheap labour; he cannot himself answer or even read every
letter that 'religious and other associations send him. He must
judge whom it is worth while interviewing, and at what points
his personal intervention is most effective. If he cannot do this,
the Civil Service will rule; not because they are eager for power,
but because somebody must make decisions, and, if the Minister
cannot, only they are left. The Minister has to defend his policy
in Parliament and in the country, and if he has not grasped the
essentials for himself, this fact will soon appear under the
searchlight of debate, "These answers," said Air. Lloyd George, ^
in a debate on an important Bill, " are not intelligible; and it is
not the fault of the Minister, for he read, very clearly, the state-
ment that had been given to him".

If this were all that bureaucracy meant, there could be little
objection. Ministers who wish to make changes 'without realising